Diagon Alley

[downunder196]

Surely that's supposed to be 45 mins or 50 mins right? .....right??

Apparently it was about 75 minutes after like 15 min of the area being open...

[pin142]

The rest of the park wasn't too quiet either.

Those wait times seem about normal for a major US park, if anything would say some of them are actually quite good.

[Tim Dasco]

i heard the longest wait time was 7 hours

[T-bone]

If you are a local and a potter fan, and want to ride the newest big thing on opening day, why not wait the whole day? Gives you a good chance to check out the queue and take it in. If I fit that category I'd consider it.

[Gazza]

Yeah that's About the only reasonable situation I can think of. If you had an annual pass and had nothing else on you might.

[BigKev]

I saw that photo online but I thought it was a countdown to the ride opening.

7 hours plus wait is unbelievable!

[JacobSibbald]

You also get the credibility of saying "I rode it on the first (official) day"

[rappa]

Was no difference with Radiator Springs.

It's a really good argument for if you spend big you get big returns.

But you have to remember before you say that our parks should do this is that these parks might go 5-10 years without a new attraction. Where as here we tend to want something every year.

[aussienetman]

Yes some don't open new attractions for a number of years but this has not been the case for Universal Florida.

2012 - Despicable Me : Minion Mayhem

2013 - Transformers: The Ride

Simpsons Fast Food Boulevard plus Kodas twist and hurl

2014 - Diagon Alley plus Hogwarts Express plus Escape from Gringotts

2015? - King Kong

With both the simpsons and diagon being fairly immersive lands, universal have sure spent a lot of money on growth in the last few years.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I think that's universal's MO though - they change out franchises as they lose relevance.

I've just been on a VHS-conversion spree recently, and one of the tapes i've converted was a VHS tape sold in Universal Hollywood at the beginning of 1996.

The tape showed (among other things) Fievel's playland (from an American Tale), BTTF: the ride, and the ET adventure. All of these things I remember from my 1996 visit - however just opened was the brand new blockbuster show - 'Waterworld'.

Now I don't think you need to see the movie for Waterworld as a show to make sense. The narrative and storyline make it obvious who is good and who isn't... but Fievel, Doc Brown and ET are long gone from the Hollywood park... but - each attraction lasted for some time before it was removed.

It also takes a year or two for them to build such an immersive and involving attraction and themed land. the WWoHP will stick around for quite some time - as did Jaws before it.

When you build something this elaborate - you expect it to last the decade at least - take a look at PASS, or Gremlins Adventure, Batride, Bermuda... all engineered to last. The trouble was... we didn't replace them with an attraction of the same calibre.

[westical]

...but Fievel, Doc Brown* and ET are long gone from the Hollywood park...

*The Simpsons Ride queue video excluded

[rappa]

Yeah but it's a major expansion. Look at how stagnant the park was before.

Universal Orlando is a bit of an exception has they have just really decided they want to go out and target Disney's business.

Look at Disneyland, no major NEW ride for over 10 years.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I'm not disagreeing with you, but most of Disney's Californian efforts have revolved around getting DCA and the associated precinct surrounding the park just right.

Although it's a separate gate, DCA was in itself an add-on attraction to DL.

Besides - I don't think you could find many people who could agree on:

• where a new ride could go
• what it should replace
• what it should be.

Although they have been known to replace and refresh from time to time, i think Disneyland has reached a sort of critical mass when it comes to attractions. There just isn't any more room to do something else without getting rid of something that already exists - and while not every attraction in the park is everyone's cup of tea, no matter what attraction you point to, there will be thousands of loyal fans of that attraction that would lynch the first person to suggest that their favourite ride be the one to go...

The only way DL is going to get anything NEW (without being remarkably similar to something else) is to venture outside the berm... and while I know they have done so for HM, PotC SmW and IJ, they're very quickly running out of places to put things.

One thing i'd love to see them do, if they could theme it appropriately is a transport ride between the two californian parks - similar to Hogwarts Express between Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, but naturally with their own unique twist. Subterranean tunnelling machines would be a cinch... if you don't mind the odd earthquake...

[MickeyD]

^ as a fellow DL nut Alexb, when it comes to expansion locations, there are just a few valuable pockets of real estate left:

- Old motor boat cruise site (perhaps ideal for a new dark ride style) adventure, 'Frozen' - a favourite theme

- big thunder ranch area and going beyond the berm to the stables (WDI rumoured to have an awesome Oz concept designed for the area, alas the film was terrible)

- Perhaps a better configuration of Tl (been an issue for years) and NO,I don't believe Star Wars land is the answer for the area either

Edited July 10, 2014 by MickeyD

[rappa]

They have a great transport (the monorail) but it has been discussed at length the ticketing issues with it I believe.